Well, it's a success searching as a leaf! No connection problems--3 UP's are plenty--fewer repeat searches needed. DL's better (but not great); UL's worse, stats are MUCH more interesting, and fewer java screen draw problems.

This time, I made sure I was starting fresh, so I changed my IP, reset the NAT, trashed (or archived onto a .dmg) ANYTHING possibly p2p, and even--rebooted in safe mode
repaired permissions
reinstalled java 1.4.1

Installing
LW 2.9.9 installed just fine (still wish LW would use the OSX installer or add more to the zerog screens) with only one minor warning
Installer: no 'sea_loc' in working dir, couldn't define $EXTRACTOR_EXECUTABLE$
Copy File: Destination: /System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions/1.3.1/Home/
Status: WARNING
Additional Notes: WARNING - Source /Users/stief/Desktop does not exist.

LW starts up, and Console still shows the backwards compatibility message
Apr 26 01:53:45 Stief /Applications/LimeWire/LimeWire.app/Contents/MacOS/LimeWire: kCGErrorFailure : CGTranslateCTM is obsolete; use CGContextTranslateCTM instead.

Selected File->Disconnect while I set my prefs. In Saving left the default;
Sharing: added a folder of 111 .mp3's (1.07 GB ); tried leaving Disable Ultrapeer Capabilities UNchecked (expected a crash the first time I tried File->disconnect/reconnect, tried LW on another machine on my NAT, or when I least expected it. This didn't happen); Filtered HTML. Unchecked Clear uploads (wish there was an option to only clear interrupted's and file not found's. I like to monitor or maybe browse in progress, completes, and queued)
nice new prefs for "show-set default" (the error message option is good)

Closed options to allow files to hash; LW using 20-40% CPU in Process Viewer; took about 10 minutes,
Control-clicked column to add vendor and location; Noted the smaller Lime [yay Ken?] and more discreet tabs. Nice change. White square shows behind spinning lime.

Connections
stable connections--3 UP's reach ~500 hosts in <10 minutes consistently, with very little thrashing. Tried pruning connections hoping to see other 299's and to see what the compression stats might show. Only found 1 2.9.9 host in three days. Hmm? Once ran with 5 UP's for a while. If several UP's connect within a few seconds of each other, they seem to stay connected.
stable!-tried the usual tricks from the past to get LW to crash (connect/disconnect with disable UP unchecked; start up other clients (LW 2.9.9 Pro; Acquisition .861) on other machines behind the NAT) LW kept on running, all internet access for mail and web unhindered. Yay [Adam?]--at last!
(Ooops--found each other's files, but couldn't dl. NAT IP's show as red, not blue ethernets. Hmm. Each client is mapped to a separate port (necessary now?), so tried to change NAT software, and managed to get a crash. USER error, I'd say.)
After a day or so I tried to force LW into Ultrapeer. Noticed 2.9.9 could maintain 15 UP's/leafs longer with no disruption to mail and web access, but trying to maintain 30 was too much for my set-up. Only saw 1-2.9.9 client. Tried different combinations but after ~5 minutes connections would usually thrash and lose all. Gave up and went back to "disable UP" checked. Guess this will have to wait till the 1.4.1 Java switch.

Searching (uncommon series, 4 rare episodes, mpg, 120-190 MB each)
LW usually finds 8-10 hosts for the 3 of the episodes, and alternates quickly build to ~20-40. 1 episode only shows up once or twice a week. GNUC and MRPH still returning broad results on narrow searches. Only had to block 3 or 4 IP's to get rid of "awesome" idiot IP's. Spacing times between searches (I usually use the spinning lime as a traffic light), or repeating searches as quickly as possible did not seem to matter. Perhaps some UP's drop out of the connections list in this case?. If not, this is good!

DL's start quickly, but newer LW sources seem to choke on chunked intervals still. Drats! Oh well, searching is great, and alternates list and cycle smoothly. GNUC and older LW's could hang onto connections, but were usually slower. Few BearShares noted (the beta seemed to stall); XoloX dreaded because the only two corrupt messages happened (coincidentally?) soon after. DL'ed from a browsed host once, and surprised to see that file start to swarm. Hmm--the alternates seem to work well! NOT ONE "Library" message! [Java reinstall? Probably Trap_jaw did it again!].

Few uploads. Figures--new shared files, new IP, so added a few teasers/popular files. This helped a bit. Forced IP seemed to help. Stats and monitor searches seemed to show everything was working, but never saw more than 1 screenful of entries per 8 hours. Only LW 2.9.8 are able to UL, and veeeeeery slowly. Blocked? Seeing very few BearShares, and all Acq's failed, even though some held an active slot for over two hours. Nothing I tried seemed to help very much. Why would LW send 1/2 a meg of HTTP Headers with no uploads even started? [aside: very little CPU is being used]. I'm lost here.

New stats--great; don't seem to bother my CPU [Nice work Sam?]
graph/table overlap easily fixed by resizing. I especially like the http breakdowns and compression stats. I never did get a chance to analyse all the stats collected or the screen shots gathered. Damn! Close button should not be Quit! Forgot that close button in LW = Quit. Windows programmers! After closing the stats window once, I "closed" the main LW window!

Started up again--strange message in console:
error from glBindTexture 502
Then the usual message in console:
Apr 27 00:02:42 Steve /Applications/LimeWire/LimeWire.app/Contents/MacOS/LimeWire: kCGErrorFailure : CGTranslateCTM is obsolete; use CGContextTranslateCTM instead.
Then this message in console: (I usually assosciate it with java . . .)
Apr 27 00:09:43 stief WindowServer[179]: orderWindow: Invalid other window

Anyway, LW has sure come a long way in the last few months, and I'm glad 2.9.9 is starting to show some real promise for 3.0.

Well, time for stief to expire--that's too long for too little information. Hope this helps someone. Lent is over, so I'm giving up gnutella to get some real work done. Thanks to all who helped me learn about this project--I've appreciated your tolerance, patience and insights (and wit).

Cheers--and thanks again for everything.

[edit--idiot newbie--forgot to post specs: OS 10.2.5, 14" iBook G3 700/384/30GB, firewall open to 6346; NAT mapped TCP 6346, 10MBit/s cable capped at 1 Mbit/s, LW 2.9.9 Pro (forced IP, ultrapeer usually disabled)